Time Immortal

This just arrived in my inbox:

The result of Marc Lemire’s Constitutional Challenge could literally make or break our fight against Section 13. It is IMPERATIVE that you email these people, and get EVERYONE YOU KNOW to do it, too!

We can put an end to Section 13 without having to wait for Parliament to wake up…but we have to act today!

I’m going to make this simple for everyone. Here is the list of emails:

THE CANADIAN CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION
A. ALAN BOROVOY, GENERAL COUNSEL
e-mail: mail@ccla.org

British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Jim Braunagel
e-mail: jim@bccla.org

PEN Canada
email: info@pencanada.ca

The Canadian Association of Journalists
Algonquin College
John Dickens, Executive Director

email: canadianjour@magma.ca

Your letter just has to ask them to “intervene as an interested party” in the Warman vs Lemire Constitutional Challenge of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Have at it, O Reader! Freedom of expression is a cornerstone right of free societies everywhere, and this right is being eroded in Canada in part because we are letting it be eroded. Speak out about this issue, and the in no uncertain terms, or you will lose the right to do so (under the guise of it being for your own good, no less!).

I think it goes without saying that all emails sent should be polite, concise, and spell-checked thoroughly. Be nice, and be articulate, and your message will go a lot further.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Today only!

That’s right — any Mark Steyn merchandise or books purchased today will mean money donated to the legal defence funds of Canadian bloggers Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle, Kate MacMillan, Mark and Connie of Free Dominion, and National Post columnist Johnathan Kay against the lawsuit filed by Richard Warman. These men and women have been vocal, vital advocates in the cause of freedom of expression rights in Canada, and both need and deserve our support, O Reader.

Read the rest of this entry »

What happens when an ex-employee of the human rights commission (HRC) attempts to sue someone for defamation, having previously only had experience with the legal fiction of the human rights kangaroo courts in Canada (where evidence is meaningless and where a person can be found guilty if it can be established that he has, or might one day, hurt the feelings of someone else)? Especially when the someone being sued is a defamation lawyer with a “take no prisoners” attitude?

See for yourself:

I’m a defamation lawyer myself, and if I had to sum up Canadian law in four words, it would be this: get your facts straight. If your facts are correct, you have the right to your opinions on those facts — even extreme or radical opinions. So [Richard Warman]’s complaint isn’t really a lawsuit. It’s a letter to the editor.

And that’s the problem here. Warman is so used to operating in kangaroo courts — so used to human rights commissions that are run by non-lawyers, with arbitrary procedures, no fixed rules of evidence, no meaningful standards of guilt, where truth is not a defence and fair comment doesn’t exist — that he thinks he can take his Orwellian thinking out from the cloister of these star chambers into the real world. That’s my earlier point: I don’t think Warman even knows how ridiculous he looks.

The doctrine of fair comment

Warman may not share my opinion that he wastes taxpayers dollars, or acts as a censor, or that human rights commissions are a joke, etc. And his opinion might even be more reasonable than mine (it’s not). But it’s not unlawful for me to have my views. Not that my views are particularly radical — many of my exact words are echoed in the language used by PEN Canada, the CAJ, the head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Noam Chomsky(!) and a dozen newspaper editorial boards across the country. That might hurt Warman’s feelings, but hurt feelings aren’t the test of defamation law.

Most everything in those blog posts was my political opinion. I did assert a few facts: I wrote that Warman encouraged some young ruffians to assault a man with a pie. That’s not a matter of fair comment, it’s either factually accurate or not. Gentle reader, click here and tell me whether that fact is true or not. I’m just not sure how Warman can deny that, but it will be interesting to watch him try.

The other factual assertion I made is that Warman himself planted anonymous posts on the internet sites that he was stalking for a complaint. Again, it’s pretty tough for Warman to take issue with that, given that both he and commission staff admit under oath that’s how they operate.

Well, Warman has tried to deny it in the past. But that didn’t really work. Here is an interesting exchange before the tribunal: at first Warman denies that he posted anonymous, provocative comments to a website he took to the commission; then, when confronted with the fact of it, he sheepishly admits to that practice. If you’re bored, you can read this lengthy affidavit by the webmaster proving that the bigoted remarks about Sen. Anne Cools were made by Warman himself. Here’s a timeline of facts related to the Anne Cools remarks.

Give ‘im hell, Ezra.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

I wrote about PEN Canada previously, noting that:

PENCanada — a Canadian non-profit organization that lobbies on behalf of writers, internationally, who have been forcibly silenced or imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression — defines freedom of expression thusly:

What do we mean by “freedom of expression?” Many definitions are out there. However, although the wording varies, the substance is the same. In its essence, freedom of expression is the right to say freely what you please, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. This includes the freedom to create and distribute written works, movies, pictures, songs, dances and all other forms of expressive communication.

And on their list of obstacles to freedom of expression, the fourth item (after assault, threats, and murder) is:

Censorship (State or otherwise imposed)

Canadians lobby — and in many cases risk their freedom or their lives — on behalf of writers world-wide who have been denied what even the UN recognizes as a basic human right. Will these same Canadians now lobby on behalf of their fellow countrymen, who are being subjected to what amounts to state censorship?

It turns out that they will. It seems that PEN Canada has put forth a statement calling for both the removal of Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), and for the dismissal of the complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s. They also decry the complaints filed against Ezra Levant.

PEN Canada calls for changes to human rights commission legislation February 4, 2008 — PEN Canada calls on the federal and provincial governments to change human rights commission legislation to ensure commissions can no longer be used to attempt to restrict freedom of expression in Canada.

Recent complaints in Alberta against journalist Ezra Levant and in Ontario against Maclean’s magazine and its writer Mark Steyn raise disturbing questions about the degree to which human rights commissions have taken it upon themselves to become arbiters of what constitutes free speech.

PEN Canada believes this is not the role of human rights commissions and that governments across the country need to make that clear both to their commissions and to Canadians.

Neither Mr. Levant nor Maclean’s magazine and Mr Steyn published anything that incited violence against the Muslim community although both have been subject of complaints to commissions. Nor did their comments violate anyone’s human rights.

…

Neither complaints should ever have been accepted by a human rights commission and both should be immediately dismissed.

To ensure there is no repetition of such attempts to constrain freedom of expression through the guise of human rights legislation, PEN supports calls for removal of subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act which states that it is discriminatory when individual or groups say or write anything that is “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.”

Similar wording in provincial human rights statutes should likewise be removed.

When I wrote the previous article, it was my hope that this group of Canadian intellectuals and lobbyists would not do the “typical” thing and demand freedoms for people in foreign nations whilst simultaneously ignoring affronts to those same freedoms within Canada.

And fortunately, they have proven consistent in their beliefs. PEN Canada is to be applauded for issuing this statement and for adding their voices to the increasingly lengthy list of people speaking out against state-sponsored censorship as enacted by human rights commissions.

What’s truly impressive, though, is the list of names attached to the statement: John Ralston Saul, Edmontonian Todd Babiak, David Cronenberg, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and more besides. Big names all — it’s a powerful thing that all of these people (many of them hard leftists, to be sure!) have spoken out in defense of freedom of speech in Canada.

It kind of makes the other side look pitiful by comparison — the best supporters they can muster are a group of anti-Semites, a misogynistic imam and a terrorism supporter. Oh, and Warren Kinsella.